Late last year, President Trump scrambled to defend Donald Trump Jr. after news broke that his eldest son had taken an ill-advised 2016 meeting with a group of Kremlin-connected Russians — one now branded “treasonous” by ex-White House adviser Steven Bannon. This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a prominent Trump ally, found himself doing the same.

A recording aired Tuesday by Channel 2, an Israeli broadcaster, featured the voice of Yair Netayahu during a drunken romp around Tel Aviv’s strip clubs in 2015. The younger Netanyahu, now 26, is heard making disparaging comments about women and boasting to friends about soliciting prostitutes. He also solicits cash from one of his companions, the son of a prominent Israeli tycoon, arguing it was only fair given the $20 billion gas deal that “my father got you.” (You can read the whole, somewhat comic transcript yourself.)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's son faces criticism for things he said in 2015. Here are four other times a world leader's kid caused controversy. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

The emergence of the tape is unwelcome news for the Israeli prime minster, who is surrounded by allegations of corruption and is at the center of two criminal probes. With the public’s attention already fixed on Netanyahu’s various dodgy dealings, including alleged demands of free champagne and cigars from foreign business executives, his son’s drunken remarks open a potential new avenue of investigation.

Meanwhile, the sordid nature of the conversation is inconvenient at a time when Netanyahu’s government is also passing unpopular legislation to curb business on the Sabbath. “In the public eye since childhood, the younger Netanyahu has been part of the traditional wholesome tableau that the Prime Minister’s family has presented to the public, with an emphasis on spending the Jewish Sabbath on family nature hikes, meals and Bible study with their father,” noted left-wing Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “Spending Friday nights club-hopping and thousands of dollars carousing with strippers was not part of that carefully honed image, damaging Netanyahu’s popularity with the religious supporters.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reads a prayer as his son Yair stands next to him at the Western Wall in Jerusalem in 2015 (Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)

In the face of a media maelstrom, both Netanyahu and his son issued conciliatory statements; Yair apologized for the “nonsense” spoken under the influence of alcohol. “My son was correct in saying yesterday that he had spoken foolish words,” said his father. “He said, it’s not me, Yair. He said that these are not the values that characterize him. And he’s right.”

Their fathers, too, have echoed each other’s illiberal agendas. In a year when much of the international community has held Trump at arm’s length, Netanyahu went in for a full embrace. As Trump pushed the construction of a wall on the Mexican border, Netanyahu chimed in, insisting that the supposed success of an Israeli barrier along its border with Egypt proved the worth of Trump’s project.

President Trump is right. I built a wall along Israel's southern border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea

Numerous American Jewish supporters of Israel now lament the rightward shift that has taken place under Netanyahu’s watch, which includes a recent move to ban activists from a number of organizations critical of the ongoing Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

“The Netanyahu administration has done more than ban critics with this latest move and all those that preceded it,” wrote David Rothkopf, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced and International Studies. “It is has turned supporters into adversaries. It has taken one large step in the direction of the illiberal thugocracies favored by the likes of Trump.”

For Netanyahu, a far more experienced and canny political operator than Trump, there may be a clear logic behind cozying up to the American president as enemies circle around him at home and abroad. But there are also clear dangers in aping Trump’s tactics.

“Trump’s attacks on the press, the judiciary and even America’s culture of civility will do damage, but that can be undone by the leaders who will follow,” wrote Daniel Gordis of Jerusalem’s Shalem College for Bloomberg View. “Israel’s democracy, however, is not two-and-a-half centuries old; it is less than 70. What the U.S. can weather, Israel may not be able to reverse. Ironically, an Israeli prime minister seeking to protect Israel by mimicking the American president may be doing more damage to his own country than even he comprehends.”